Letter: No news here

I was intimately involved with the newspaper business for more than 16 years and spent most of those years overseeing editorial boards and working with editors on news that we deemed worthy of providing to our public.

On Friday I opened the Concord Monitor to find a front-page article (which in my tenure as chief operating officer of a 250,000-circulation newspaper was mostly reserved for truly news breaking stories) entitled “Mayor, developer have business relationship.”

The clear slant of such a headline was to try to portray something, that upon investigation was an arms-length deal, as possibly something that it is not. The story describes a rental arrangement between Concord Mayor Jim Bouley’s lobbying firm (Dennehy & Bouley) and developer Steve Duprey. The story brings into light the “ethics” of such arrangements. However, in the story we learn that the rent paid by the mayor’s lobbying firm is fair market value and that the lease arrangement has also been subject to normal rate escalations.

Where’s the story here? Even if you thought there was a conflict of interest, after learning of the fair market value lease arrangement, where is the news?

What disturbs me even more is the fact that a person like Duprey, arguably one of the most involved people in Concord’s redevelopment, is seemingly maligned by such an article.

Our city has been in a state of decline, and Duprey and his business associates have invested capital, taken a huge financial risks, spent tireless hours in an attempt to revitalize our city.

The gratitude we show is to write stories such as this? Really?

We need more people like Duprey who actively make a difference to try to help the people and business owners of Concord.

Thank you Richard. Finally, a professional schooling the amateurs at the Monitor. I was reading an interesting article about experience yesterday and this one line jumped out: "companies embracing 'on the job training' may find that it is a good short term solution to filling positions and controlling payroll but long term, on the job training is neither efficient nor effective in building a professional organization". OTJT is needed and excellent on certain situations but when it comes to leadership and management it seldom provides a better result, in fact, it usually creates an environment of closed minds and limited options as companies grow organically. That has certainly happened at the Monitor. Hence, amateur reporting as Richard pointed out.

Vanzxcv wrote:

11/26/2012

The Pravda on the Merrimack AKA the Concord Monitor viciously malign a Republican, like Steve Duprey. No.
It seems like it is the Monitor's mission statement to viciously malign Republicans. I hope Duprey buys the Monitor and fires the Complete Monitor Editorial board and replaces them with real journalists.